Senate Republicans Release Budget Resolution to Fully Fund ICE and CBP Through End of Trump Term

Senate Republicans on Tuesday released the text of a budget resolution to fully fund two controversial immigration enforcement agencies at the heart of the ongoing Department of Homeland Security shutdown through the end of President Donald Trump's term. The resolution seeks to fund the two DHS divisions — Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Customs and Border Protection — without having to rely on votes from Democratic senators to do so. Opposition from Democrats to funding ICE and CBP first triggered the partial shutdown of DHS and has kept it going. The Senate could take a preliminary vote on the measure as early as Tuesday afternoon. The resolution, which directs the Senate's Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and Judiciary committees to draft final immigration enforcement bills, sets a cap of $70 billion for each committee. Trump has set a June 1 deadline for passage of a final bill to fund the two divisions. "Republicans are doing something that must be done quickly, and that our Democrat colleagues are trying to prevent us from doing. That something is simple: fully fund Border Patrol and ICE at a time of great threat to the United States," Senate Budget Committee Chair Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said in a statement. "With this budget resolution, we are moving forward — not backward — on rational immigration policies that secure our border," Graham said. Democrats immediately vowed to fight the bill. "Instead of doing literally anything to lower costs, Republicans are spending their time working hard to cut another massive blank check for ICE and Border Patrol — without any reforms, or even basic guardrails," Senate Appropriations Committee ranking member Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said in a statement. Democrats refused to fund ICE and parts of CBP after federal agents killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis in January as part of an immigration crackdown by the Trump administration. Funding lapsed for DHS in February. Since then, lawmakers have struggled to reach a funding deal, as Democrats continue to call for changes to federal immigration practices. "After the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, people across the country demanded ICE be reined in," Murray said. "But instead of working with Democrats to enact real reform, Republicans rejected the most basic accountability measures, and now they're rushing to give ICE billions of dollars more," she said. The Senate in late March unanimously passed a package that would fund all of DHS except for ICE and Border Patrol, with a plan to then pursue a budget reconciliation package to fund those two divisions. Budget reconciliation, which is used to pass spending-related matters, requires a simple 50-vote majority in the Senate, as opposed to the 60 votes normally required to overcome a filibuster. House Republicans spiked that deal and instead passed a stopgap measure to extend funding for all of DHS through May 22. That resolution then moved to the Senate, where it did not have enough votes to pass, extending the shutdown.